Hospitals use different types of medical devices from different manufacturers. While the medical devices are configured to communicate over the same network (e.g., a local area network (“LAN”)), the format of the data from each device is different. Each medical device developer may have their own proprietary format that is believed to be superior to other formats. Device developers attempt to gain wide-spread use of their proprietary data formats to restrict other developers from entering a hospital system or to obtain licensing payments from other developers that also desire to use the same data format. Even developers that use a standard data format, such as Health Level 7 (“HL7”), may still use customized data fields and definitions to make it difficult for other developers to integrate their medical devices into the same system.
In one example, a hospital system may select to use infusion pumps from a first developer. The data from the infusion pumps is formatted using a proprietary format. The use of the proprietary format forces the hospital to spend millions of dollars and months of time to develop an interface to enable the data from the infusion pumps to be compatible with the rest of the system. An interface may, for example, convert the infusion pump data into a format for inclusion within electronic medical records or transmission to user interface devices, such as a centralized monitoring system or clinician tablet computers/smartphones. The interface may also convert data originating in the hospital system into a format that is compatible with the infusion pump. For example, an electronic infusion therapy prescription from a pharmacy management system may be converted into a format that is recognized by an infusion pump.
As one can appreciate, the use of proprietary data formats and specialized interfaces make it difficult or almost impossible for medical devices to share or integrate data. This would require, for example, medical device developers to create separate interfaces for their devices that are compatible with every possible proprietary data format. Alternatively, the hospital system would have to create additional specialized interfaces. Given the number of different types of medical devices (e.g., infusion pumps, dialysis or renal therapy machines, physiological sensors/vital sign monitors, medical scanners, etc.), this is an almost impossible task.